1
SACK: TACKLING OF THE QB BEHIND THE LINE OF SCRIMMAGE.
Late June
“She’s not that pretty, but she sure is loyal,” Bryce drawls.
Another voice, one I can’t pinpoint, shouts, “Dude, that’s your fiancée you’re talking about.”
There’s another titter of laughter around the backyard before Bryce questions, “Do I lie?” As if he’s the one wronged when he’s just shoved the Lombardi trophy through my heart.
The tray of drinks I grabbed at Bryce’s gentle request a few moments earlier, “You disappeared with your girls, baby. We let the servers go too early, baby,” rattles precariously in my hands. I quickly set them down on the nearest console table before they crash to the floor, revealing my presence before I can finish eavesdropping.
Maybe it’s just the booze, I try to rationalize. After all, Bryce and his teammates have been drinking since early afternoon. Now, long past sunset, I’d been hoping Bryce and I could ease people out of the home I had moved a few suitcases of clothes into just this past week so we could have some quality time. Especially since he was leaving for training camp next week, but that turned out to be a futile hope. For him and his teammates, past and present, apparently our engagement party is just getting started.
So are the insults.
About me. The woman he’s supposed to love, honor, and cherish above all others.
“Why her?” One asks.
“Why not, Maya?” Bryce counters.
My heart warms slightly at his defense of me, us. It’s always been the two of us together. We grew up together—both of us living in a small town with one working stoplight that they just last year voted to rename from “Main Street” to “Parry Street” in his honor. I was so proud of him. Of us. Bryce said the same thing when we got back to the hotel that night.
“I don’t know how I would have done it without you, Maya.”
I cupped his cheek. “You would have figured it out. I believe in you.”
He shook his head. “Maybe.”
I leaned forward and kissed his lips. “I’m certain of it.”
He fell back onto the bed pulling me on top of him. “You know one of the things I love the most about you?”
“What’s that?”
He brushed my long curls away from my face. “You don’t look at me and see a brand. You see…well, me. Warts and all.”
I leaned down and brushed my lips against his. “Well, if you have any warts, I’ve yet to find them.”
He tugs my head forward and short-circuits my system with a heated kiss. “I hope you never do.”
Looks like today is the day they reveal themselves to me.
“Chicks throw themselves at you all the time, Parry,” One points out.
Another shouts from what must be the far side of the fire pit, “You mean to tell me you don’t help yourself while you’re out on the road?”
There’s a long pause before the same voice mocks, “That’s what I thought.”
As a travel photojournalist, I’ve been to some pretty hairy places. Some of which I downplayed to Bryce, actually concerned he would be worried about my well-being. They were beautiful and terrifying in equal measure. Still, I’d worried it would be my job that would be the death of me. Never did I imagine it would be the viperous silence that would be the cause of my heart fracturing into a million pieces.
Bryce remarks offhandedly, “I’m just bein’ friendly with the ladies.”
“Friendly. Right. That’s what you call cheating on your intended?” I suck in my breath as, through my despair, I recognize that particular voice. It’s Troy Walsh—my fiancé’s former teammate. The man who repeatedly told me he would support me with anything I needed for our wedding at the end of football season.
I thought we were friends.
